


Up-Up-Up, Down-Down-Down

by idyll



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Community: sga_flashfic, Drugs, Episode Tag, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-05-01
Updated: 2006-05-01
Packaged: 2017-10-07 10:37:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/64319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/idyll/pseuds/idyll
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Rodney is moving faster than the speed of light, moving through his own hyperspace window, and it's freedom and elegance and purity of thought.</i> Set directly post-Siege III</p>
            </blockquote>





	Up-Up-Up, Down-Down-Down

Rodney is up-up-up and the world is crystal clear, every particle of it visible and comprehendible, and Rodney can do anything and everything all at once and he could own the world, the universe, all of the universes.

Soon Rodney will fall down-down-down because that's the way of things and, god, it's beautiful and perfect and right and it makes _sense_. But for now he's up and he's planning on staying up as long as he can, because without the imminent fear of death he can enjoy it, follow it, own it, let it carry him along and have its way with him.

When he hurries through the halls he zigs and zags, moving around all those particles, skirting all the things he usually can't see, and larger matter is a blur streaking past his periphery: flesh like smeared lines of pale pink in an impressionist painting; colored uniforms stretched out towards eternity; corridor walls as elongated and elastic as pull taffy.

"McKay, where the hell are you?"

Sheppard, in his ear. No, Sheppard's voice in his ear. There's a distinction, an important one, because the former is impossible (or not, because nothing right now is impossible, and everything can be done, and Rodney is capable of whatever he wants, he knows it, feels it, and, oh, that's how it should be).

"McKay!"

"I don't know," Rodney tells him. "Though I suppose--"

"You're _supposed_ to be in the infirmary."

A grumbling sound, like Sheppard is muttering under his breath, and if Rodney were in the same room as Sheppard he would be able to see those words, even though they're low and muffled. Rodney would be able to zoom in on them as they left Sheppard's mouth and read them like equations, prove them out and know their meaning, concrete and true in a way Sheppard's actual words never are because his inflections are always misleading.

"Attention everyone, this is Sheppard. I need a location on McKay. Does anyone see him?"

"This is Dr. Lewis. He's staggering towards the labs."

"Zig-zagging," Rodney corrects. "If you could see, you'd understand--well, maybe not you, because you're a _linguist_, but someone with a brain capable of cognitive abilities greater than a toddler's would--"

"Key off your radio, McKay," Sheppard interrupts. "And try to stand still, would you?"

Rodney tears the radio from his ear, drops it carelessly, and continues forward. No, not forward, just onward, because straight lines are a creation of man and don't really exist--he remembers reading that somewhere and he probably shouldn't trust it because it was in some literary novel he'd paged through in his neighbor's apartment when he'd asked her to take care of his cat. And he should be surer than he is of the veracity of that claim, but perspective gets skewed when one becomes aware.

But sometimes a loss of perspective is necessary to understand--is necessary to make art out of science--and Rodney wonders if maybe it isn't true, if maybe there aren't any such things as straight lines, wonders if that's the answer to everything.

He shudders at the thought. To have the answers to everything. Oh, god, it's exquisite, the idea of it better than sex, and food, and being right, and all measures of pleasure Rodney's ever used.

Rodney is moving faster than the speed of light, moving through his own hyperspace window, and it's freedom and elegance and purity of thought and--no, no, no.

He tugs at the hand on his arm trying to bring him down to sublight speeds, maybe even slower than that. Anti-motion, perhaps. Entropy and, and, and--no, he needs to move, because he's losing it.

Something against his back, hard and unyielding. The same pressed against his chest, and Rodney blinks, focuses, sees Sheppard and realizes he's been pinned against a wall. For a split second the world around him is no longer blurred and he panics because he's not ready, not yet, and then only Sheppard isn't blurred, and it's all pull taffy and impressionism around them.

"What?" Rodney shouts. "What, what, what?"

"Settle down, would you?" Sheppard hisses and reaches up to his radio. "Carson, I've got him."

Rodney peers at Sheppard's mouth, looking for his words, but Sheppard's been pulled into his field, is too close and is speeding through the slow-moving world with Rodney, and there's too much perspective and not enough time-dilation, and Sheppard's words and tone belie his face and their history, and Rodney doesn't understand any of it.

"Come on. We're confining you to your quarters until you come down."

Calling Rodney's living area "quarters" is misleading. It's a room, with walls. It's a confined space, limiting and easily mapped and defined; Rodney's already done that, already learned what he could, and it's time for bigger things, for the contemplation of things vast and immeasurable.

He fights Sheppard every step of the way but Sheppard manages to drag him back, down halls, around corners, and, finally, through a door.

"I need the locks engaged on the door to McKay's quarters."

Again, that word, that incorrect definition of this space, and Rodney's lips curl, and his fists clench. "It's a room. Just a room. And you're keeping me here, preventing me from--" Sheppard rolls his eyes, and even though he's let Rodney go, he's still in Rodney's field, and it's getting harder and harder to be up-up-up. "--I think your being here in my space is taking it from me!"

"Taking what?"

"Everything! I'm so close, Major, so close to understanding, and it's--you couldn't possibly understand what it's like, how it feels to be, to be..."

And, no, god, no, he's starting to fall, starting to plummet, and as soon as he thinks that he can feel himself shaking and sweating.

"Right, okay, back up. Now sit down and--okay, or fall back, that works, too," Sheppard says and Rodney has no idea what he's talking about, but then he blinks and he's staring at his ceiling and he's sprawled on his back on his bed. Sheppard sits next to his hip, his back to Rodney. "Good, now just stop. For two seconds just..._stop_."

"What? Stop what?" Rodney's words are rattled by his chattering teeth, and they come out in too many syllables and in too long a time, and he grabs Sheppard's arm to brace himself. "What am I doing?"

Sheppard sighs. "Moving, talking, thinking--"

"I almost blew you up." Sheppard jerks under Rodney's hand, tries to pull away, but Rodney holds on tighter. "You would have been particles, I would have zig-zagged through you, and I don't know if I would have known it was you and not--and not--and not something meaningless."

"Shut up, McKay. We're not having this discussion ever. Just close your eyes like a good little scientist and go to sleep already."

A year of missions with Sheppard and Rodney's learned--after some time of resistance--to listen to certain of Sheppard's tones, so his eyes close before he even gets a chance to tell them to, and Sheppard's muscles relax under his hand.

And Rodney, if he'd thought about it, he would have thought that closing his eyes would make it worse, make it happen faster, but all it does is make everything else work better, and he holds his breath and he can feel it all swimming around him, brushing against his skin, sliding through him and into him, and it brings him closer, until he could almost reach out and touch it, touch that answer, know everything there is to know.

"We could do anything," he says with awe and his world spins, his mind races. "It's right there, right _there_, and, oh, fuck!"

Rodney hears Sheppard's whispered, "Jesus, Rodney" but there's no context for it, just two words--four syllables--and Rodney's hips buck, and he realizes he's hard, but it's not as important as what's hovering an inch outside of his comprehension, so very close in normal perspective, but so very far without perspective or straight lines.

"Every single answer in one answer," Rodney gasps and he knows he's writhing on the bed, knows that he's pulling on Sheppard's arm and Sheppard is moving over him, against him. "Oh, god, yes, so close."

"Christ, this is insane--fuck, yeah, again--"

Rodney's brain stutters, derails, because he can feel those words of Sheppard's, can prove them out, and the result is something he never would have predicted, expected, even if he'd run a million simulations.

His eyes snap open and the world is no longer impressionist blurs, just clear precise strokes and man-made lines, and _Sheppard_\--hard and solid and hot against him--and Rodney doesn't think this is something he ever wanted before tonight, or before this moment, but right now it's the only thing that _is_, and he can see the circles like bruises under Sheppard's eyes, smell the dried stench of fear-sweat on him, and if things had gone differently Rodney might have zigged around him, zagged past him, and not even _known_.

When Rodney comes, he thrusts up-up-up, and Sheppard shoves his face against Rodney's neck and freezes, makes a noise like he's dying, and Rodney grabs frantically at his back, digs his fingers in, and falls down-down-down.

.End


End file.
